Microsoft Teams: Terms of Service
1. General
1.1. All relevant University policies apply to the use of the Teams service and associated Microsoft 365 services.
1.2. Violation of a relevant University policy may lead to the withdrawal of the Teams service from an individual or the withdrawal of a Team.
1.3. If University Information Services (UIS) becomes aware of a relevant University policy violation within a Team, it will report this to the relevant University institution.
1.4. Team names should be clear, must not be misleading and must not attempt to misrepresent other institutions, functions or people within the University.
1.5. Team names must conform to the University's Acceptable Use Policy.
1.6. Teams can be renamed by UIS, with or without notice.
1.7. The Teams service is provided for activities furthering the University's mission. Personal activities are permissible, but the service is operated to fulfil University requirements only. Privacy of personal use data within Teams is subject to University policy and is therefore limited (see 3.6).
1.8. Third party applications are not enabled. Any data supplied to a third party application cannot be guaranteed to obey the University data governance policies or UK legislation.
1.9. This Terms of Service will be updated as Microsoft updates the Teams product.
2. Team Ownership & Membership
2.1. Teams are owned by Team Owners. Team Owners are responsible for the Team.
2.2. Each Team should have a minimum of two Owners who manage the Team. They must be University staff or students.
2.3. Teams may contain Owners and Members from multiple University institutions.
2.4. If every Member in a Team leaves, the Team becomes empty and inactive.
2.4.1. An inactive Team will expire on the expiration date and is automatically deleted.
2.4.2 An application to take ownership of an empty Team should be sent to the UIS Service Desk.
2.5. Team Owners can delete a Team and its contents at any time. UIS will not restore the Team or contents without permission from one of the Team Owners.
2.6. Where a Team has no active Owners, new Owners will be automatically assigned from other Team Members. This may include all current Team Members. The new Team Owners are responsible for the Team.
2.7. Teams may include Guest accounts for people outside the University.
3. Team Privacy
3.1. A Public Team may be joined by any University staff or student with a University account.
3.2. A Private Team is a private collaborative work space. Only Team Members can access the Team.
3.3. The membership of a Private Team is chosen by the Team Owners.
3.4. Under the specific instruction of a Team Owner UIS may add or remove a Member to a Private Team.
3.5. Under the specific instruction of a Team Owner UIS may add a UIS member of staff to a Private Team as a Member or Owner for the purpose of technical support.
3.6. UIS IT staff will not access content in a Private Team without the permission of a Team Owner.
3.7. An official University investigation can request and be granted access to a Private Team, and the data contained within it, without the permission or knowledge of Team Owners or Members.
3.7.1. A University investigation requesting access to a Private Team must follow the official University request process.
3.7.2. During an investigation the University may take a copy of data files and messages within a Private or Public Team which will be kept for the purpose and the duration of the investigation.
4. Data in Teams
4.1. Data files placed in Teams are subject to all relevant University policies.
4.2. Channel and Chat messages are subject to all relevant University policies.
4.3. The compliance, governance and retention of data within a Team is the responsibility of the Team Owners and Members.
4.4. Messages in Teams have the following data retention policies:
4.4.1. Channel messages are subject to a retention policy of one year and will remain until the Team site is deleted or an team owner explicitly deletes the channel message from a team site.
4.4.2. Chat messages are not retained
4.4.3. Team Owners and the message author can delete a Channel message.
4.4.4. Team Members can edit their Channel messages.
4.4.5. When a Member leaves a Team, their channel messages are subject to the retention policies.
4.5. Data files in Teams have the following retention policies:
4.5.1. Unless otherwise specified, data files in Teams inherit the default retention policy and are subject to an initial one year retention policy, there after any files will remain indefinitely until the Team is deleted or the file is explicitly selected for deletion.
4.5.2. Owners of a Team site can place the team into archive status, which retains the data indefinitely and makes the team site read only.
4.6. Teams allows deleted data files to be restored by the file owner within 30 days after deletion.
4.7. Teams allows deleted data files to be restored by the UIS within 93 days after deletion.
4.8. When a Team Member leaves a Team, their data files left in the Team become the responsibility of the Team Owners.
4.9. Every Team has an expiration date set to 12 months from the creation date.
4.9.1. 30 days before the expiration date an email notification is sent to the Owner with instructions on how to renew the Team. This is repeated at 15 days and 1 day before the Team's expiration date.
4.9.2. The expiration date is auto-renewed for any Team that has activity from any Team Member before its expiration date.
4.9.3. A Team that has no activity and is not renewed by the Team Owners will automatically expire.
4.9.4. A Team that expires is automatically deleted along with all content. A Team Owner can request for the Team to be recovered by the UIS within 30 days after expiration. After 30 days it cannot be recovered.